Hawaii has twice as many non-practicing Catholics as practicing ones. A new program is seeking them out.

By Anna Weaver | Hawaii Catholic Herald

In Hawaii approximately two-thirds of Catholics don’t attend church on a regular basis.

They may have left because of marrying someone of another faith, divorcing, problems within their parish, misunderstandings or disagreements on Catholic positions, or because they no longer felt connected.

As a way to encourage these non-practicing Catholics to return to the church, the Catholics Returning Home program was initiated here in 2004, as part of the diocesan Office of Welcoming Parish.

The six sessions of Catholics Returning Home 1: Welcome/ Overview of Series 2: Presentation on Inactive Catholics & Sharing 3: The Church Today, Q&A 4: Explanation of the Mass, Q&A 5: Explanation of the Sacrament of Penance 6: Creed: What Catholics Believe Upcoming Catholics Returning Home programs St. John the Apostle and Evangelist Parish, Mililani, starts April 30 Annunciation Parish, Kamuela, Big Island, starts April 19 Contact the individual parish for details. For information on starting a parish program, call Steve Odo at 225-8633.

The program is based on Sally L. Mews’ book Inviting Catholics Home: A Parish Program. It’s a process of six consecutive weekly meetings led by a team of lay people. Participants also have a chance to speak with a priest one-on-one. The sessions stress dialogue, “listening with compassion,” openness and reconciliation. Everything is kept confidential.

“It’s a gentle way of welcoming them back,” said Steve Odo, who with his wife Caroline began Catholics Returning Home in Hawaii.

The program has been run at eight parishes since 2005. Four Oahu parishes are currently hosting Returning Home sessions and two more will hold sessions this year. (See sidebars)

Case One

Steve and Caroline Odo are themselves returning Catholics.

The Odos had been very active at Our Lady of Good Counsel Parish in Pearl City before disagreements with parish administration led them to the evangelical Protestant New Hope Christian Fellowship five years ago.

In 2002, when a good friend Judy Winner was dying, Steve and Caroline went to visit her in the hospital. They were amazed to see 30 people in her ICU room praying the rosary.

About a month before Winner died, the Odos were driving home from visiting her and Caroline asked, “If we were in this situation, what would we do? What church would we go to?” They both agreed it was the Catholic Church.

They later learned that Winner had been praying for their return. Soon after, the Odos went back to Our Lady of Good Counsel.

Their own experience persuaded the Odos to start a program to invite inactive Catholics back to the church. They and six others formed a diocesan team which trains parishes to run their own Returning Home programs.

The program offers a concrete, clear, audible invitation to searching souls.

“We believe that everyone has answers within them,” Odo said. “But they need to hear their voice come back through their outer ear and resonate within them to begin to realize where God is calling them.”

Case Two

The Catholics Returning Home program faces an inherent difficulty — finding the non-practicing Catholics interested in coming back. It often takes the urging of family or friends for someone to consider a church homecoming.

In Bryan Louis’ case it was his sister Debbie Fujiyama, a team member in Blessed Sacrament’s Catholics Returning Home program, who got him to try out the current session.

Louis said he went to church when he was growing up because his mother wanted him to, but he felt “church was a chore.” Now, he said, after falling away “a lot” from the Catholic Church he is ready to take a second look.

“To me it’s a feeling, I guess the Holy Spirit, where there’s a feeling that tells you [the Catholic Church] is right,” said the general maintenance foreman.

He has been to three meetings so far and finds them to be “a good forum for asking questions.”

Louis likes talking with the team members leading the sessions, many of whom themselves are returning Catholics.

“It’s interesting to learn their stories,” he said, “and you can tell them your story.”

Going to church “gives you a reason to think that when life is over, it’s not over” he said.

Case Three

After marrying a Protestant husband, Catholic-raised Susan Duffy decided to attend the Episcopal Church as a compromise between their two faiths. She felt it was important they go to church together as a family, especially after they had two children, who she wanted to have a “rock solid faith.”

However after 20 years of attending the Episcopal Church, the Duffys were troubled by internal division within the Anglican-Episcopal communion over issues such as homosexuality and women clergy.

In 2004, Susan and her children came back to the Catholic Church. Her husband converted a year later.

When Duffy first returned, she looked for a way to ease back into Catholicism. She attended some Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults classes, but didn’t feel it fit her as a returning Catholic.

Duffy came across Mews’ book and said it helped her re-learn about the Church. When she heard that a Catholics Returning Home program was starting at her parish, Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Ewa Beach, she volunteered to help.

“I just feel like there are some people out there that want to be a part of a parish family, they want that sense of community,” Duffy said. “They just don’t know how to do it.”

“They want to be happy. They want to know that something is absolutely positively true.”

Case Four

For Mary Talon, an occupational health nurse and parishioner at Our Lady of Sorrows in Wahiawa, it took a patient she was caring for at Tripler Army Medical Center to bring her back to the church.

Talon said that after her marriage ended she stopped going to church. But even before then, when she was a teenager, she began to drift from the faith in which she had been raised.

“I was of that mindset and era where you could be spiritual but not religious,” said Talon, who is now the Catholics Returning Home coordinator at Our Lady of Sorrows and a diocesan team member.

However, for the many years she didn’t attend church, she said she “knew that there was something missing in my life and I didn’t really know what it was.”

Talon was encouraged by her Catholic patient to go back to church. Inactive Catholics often need someone to reach out an inviting hand, she said.

“I know from having been out of the church for over 30 years, it’s difficult to come back,” she said.

Our Lady of Sorrows also has an adult faith formation group called Catholic Café that meets regularly for returned Catholics or any Catholic that wants to know more about their faith.

Future plans for Catholics Returning Home in Hawaii include expanding to more neighbor island parishes and reaching out to even more inactive Catholics.

“The church is a sleeping giant,” Odo said. “We know that we have tremendous potential in the church.”